The Foundation has just celebrated its first anniversary, and I am pleased to note that its first results are promising: four Training sessions have been carried out in Saudi Arabia, in Canada, in Abu Dhabi, and in Argentina; some others are in preparation notably in Thailand, Malaysia, China and Abu Dhabi again.

The Foundation has also contributed to its goal in inviting to its actions several participants from developing countries (Myanmar, Laos, Nepal, etc.), and some studies are in progress to organize sessions directly in several developing countries.

At the same time the studies are going on to endow the Foundation with specific offices within the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne.

The Foundation was created in order to promote the Professional Training and Development of experts with different levels of competence and different sectors of expertise in the field of Tunnelling and Underground space; it is at the service, in close relation with ITA, of all those who wish to contribute to this goal; feel free to ask for its contribution, and to contribute to its development for the benefit of all our profession.

The President Eng Abdullah AI-Mogbel

Prof. Jian Zhao holds the Chair of Rock Mechanics and Tunnelling and is the Director of Laboratoire de Mécanique des Roches (LMR) in EPFL

ITA CET Foundation is naturally, together with ITA, hosted by the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Laboratoire de Mécanique des Roches (LMR).  As an educational institution, EPFL supports close collaboration with ITA CET Foundation to provide education and training to the tunnelling industry.

The quickest solution is from the industry itself, through the training programs organised by industrial and professional associations.  It is therefore indeed a positive move to establish ITA CET Foundation offering the training need of the tunnelling industry.

André Assis is a professor at the university of Brasilia, consultant in tunnelling and chairman of the executive board of the Foundation

A seven minutes abstract of an open conversation about the purpose and aims of the Foundation, and what the chairman of the executive board is expecting from its actions.

Watch it on epfl TV >>

At the request of the Association of Tunnels and Underground Space (AATES), the Foundation prepared a one day seminar on "Construction Methods for Tunnelling".

Six lecturers, Amanda Ellioff - ITA Executive Council member, André Assis - Chairman of the Executive Council of ITACET Foundation, In-Mo Lee – ITA President , Daniele Peila  - ITACET Foundation Technical Director, Piergiorgio Grasso - Vice-President of the Council of the ITACET Foundation and Soren Eskesen - ITA Vice-President gave a total eigth of lectures.

At the request of the Thailand  Underground & Tunnelling Group the Foundation prepared a two days training session on "Principles of Tunnel Design and Construction".

More than sixty persons registered for the training session, both from the academical and corporate world.

On the occasion of the Training Session on Immersed Tunnels in Abu-Dhabi, Christian Ingerslev, technical organizer on behalf of the Foundation, made a donation to the foundation. We thank him warmly.

Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) – 27-28 February 2011: "Principles for Tunnel Design” 

Helsinki (Finland) – 20-21 May 2011: Training session on “Holistic Approach for use of wet sprayed concrete for rock support” during WTC 2011

Hagenberg (Austria) - 14 - 15 July 2011: "Numerical Simulation"